[saden1]

Originally Posted by mheisig

Annnnd thread hijacked.

In a nutshell AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) lets you update content on a webpage without refreshing / reloading the entire page.

Case in point, the tabs on NFL.com When you click between "Fantasy, "Spotlight" and "Voices" the content is changed instantly without reloading the entire page.

As far as the benefits as a user interface element it makes for faster, cleaner, more efficient browsing for the end user. It's the new hotness in the past year or two, what with Google pushing it like mad. It's nothing really that new, however, just a new way of using technologies that have been around for a while.

I am of the opinion that you need a good reason to actually incorporate AJAX, not just for the sake of using the latest techno-buzzword. The most useful implementation is if you have a lot of data in different categories that you would like your user to view without waiting for a page refresh. NFL.com has actually implemented it quite well, and the ultimate AJAX use in my opinion is pretty much anything Google does (Gmail, iGoogle, etc.)

NFL.com's front page doesn't use AJAX for its tabs. They're using div hide/show which makes it seem like they're using AJAX. I imagine they're using it here and there though (updating scoreboard on game days).